Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/72

 *—require, and Mr. Blaine himself most have had some consciousness of his partial failure, some dissatisfaction with his effort, for I was just about to put my story on the wire at six o'clock when he appeared, with his rich host, and asked for me. I talked to him through the little wicket of the telegraph office, and the conversation began inauspiciously by the rich man's peremptorily commanding me to let him see my stuff; he wished, he said, to "look it over"! I was not as patient with his presumption then as I think I could be now, for I had not learned that it was the factory system that produces such types, men who bully the women at home and the women and clerks and operatives in their shops, and I denied him the right, of course. He became very angry, and blustered through the little window, while the operator, an old telegrapher I had known in Toledo, sat behind me waiting to send the story clicking into Chicago on The Herald's wire. After the rich man had exhausted himself, Mr. Blaine took his place at the window and in a mild and calm manner, asked me for my copy, saying that he was not well, and that he had made some slips in his speech which he did not care to have go to the country. It was those unfortunate or fortunate babies of the protective tariff system, and he said that the correspondent of a press association had agreed to make the excisions if I would do so, and he would consider it a favor if I would oblige him.

The charm of his manner had been on me all that day, and I had been feeling sorry for him all day,